An alphabytes catch-up entry.

I have a good life. I have a job I generally enjoy, with coworkers I like, and a great salary and benefits. I have a gorgeous apartment for extremely cheap rent. I have a family who loves me, and plenty of good friends.

But I still get envious of a lot of people. I wish I didn’t, I wish I could be better than that. When my friends have parents who pay off their student loans, it makes me green with envy. I likely have another 2.6 years left on mine – ick. When my friends get gifts of thousands of dollars from family members, well it’s hard to see.

Which is strange. Like I said, I have a great salary – I really don’t want or need for anything. So I wish I could get over myself, but I supposed envy somewhat of a natural reaction. It’s not that I’m not happy for my friends’ (or mosty of them, anyway), it’s that I wish I had what they had.

On a more emotional level, I also get envious of people in relationships that seem so sure of each other. The ones who get married after 1 year and a half of dating, the ones who want that commitment. Lately my girlfriend and I have been having trouble. We’re working on it, in both active and passive ways, but sometimes I wonder if we’re going somewhere. I wish we had that commitment.

Sometimes I think it would be good to know if there are things in my life others are envcious of. Perhaps it would teach me to count my blessings.
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When I was a child one of the ways my mother would splurge was to bring home Fish & Chips from a local restaurant called “Norfolk Fish & Chips”. They were the old school kind, the fries in a paper box (complete with grease soaked spots) and the fish came wrapped up in paper.

My mom loved fish and chips, I think most of my siblings liked it, but I loathed it. Never ate the stuff. It was the batter that I hated, I think I had too many bad experiences with the horrible captain highliner fish sticks my mother would buy and make us eat (lord those things were vile), so all breaded fish was out.

Indeed, it wasn’t until last fall, when a friend of mine ordered the beer battered fish and chips at a pub that I even tried battered fish. But her food looked so good that I tried a bite, and I was in love. Now breaded fish and I are friends – but only the restaurant/pub kind – Captain highliner is still on the blacklist of foods.

Man that shit was gross.